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The poor have it too good. The poor are treated with too much favoritism in the federal tax code. That's what Mitch McConnell said yesterday (in an interview that aired this morning). You may consider it outrageous. I certainly do. But what he said is the formed basis for right-wing conservative economic policy. Here is part of the interview from CBS News:

Note the clever propaganda-spreading in McConnell's interview.

Almost 70 percent of the federal revenue is provided by the top 10 percent of taxpayers now. Between 45 percent and 50 percent of Americans pay no income tax at all. We have an extraordinarily progressive tax code already. It is a mess and needs to be revisited again,

The first sentence in McConnell's assertion is an out-and-out lie. Top 10% of taxpayers do not provide 70% of federal revenue. Rather, they provide for 70% of federal income tax revenue, and the federal income tax itself accounts for only about 40% of total federal revenue. But what McConnell and the Republicans hope no one will notice is that income taxes, oddly enough, aren't the only taxes that comes out of one's income. If you earn your income from, you know, working (as opposed to the way Mitt Romney makes his money), the primary taxes coming out of your paycheck are the income tax (federal and state, if your state has any) as well as payroll taxes. McConnell's propaganda calculation does not include payroll taxes, which are a much greater burden on the poor and the middle class than for the rich.

The share of revenues vary a little from year to year, but about 34-40% of federal revenues come from payroll taxes. The chart on the right represent the numbers from the receipts in 2010, courtesy of the Tax Policy Center (with data from Office of Management and budget). The rich are far less affected by the payroll tax, as it is capped at a certain level for earned income and not at all charged for the income of the super rich - who make their money in capital gains.

Dan Pfeiffer of the White House explained just what is factually wrong with McConnell's - and other Republicans' - propaganda argument. Let's see what happens when you combine the total contributions and its effects on the actual federal revenue:

In fact, because of growing income inequality, the top 10 percent of American earners now earns 42 percent of the nation’s income, and when correctly calculated, pay about 50 percent of the federal income and payroll tax burden - not much larger than their share of earnings.

Of course, the top 10%, with incomes of an average of $400,000 (and the top 1% with incomes over $1 million a year each), they can and should be bearing more of the tax burden.

But that's the factual inaccuracies. The agenda behind those inaccuracies is fare more cynical. That is to end America's only progressive tax - the income tax. Elect Mitt Romney and it will become reality - the government will simply become a conduit through which the common wealth gets channeled to the rich few.

In his speech to Congress, Netanyahu argued strongly against a deal being negotiated with Iran to rein in its nuclear ambitions. The speech had a distinct ring of desperation however, and his constant appeal to "world powers" is a window to President Obama's powerful global leadership.

The media narrative on John Boehner has remained the same for a very long time: poor fella. He's trying you see, but the uber conservatives in the House just won't let him compromise. Bullshit. It's time to change the narrative and recognize Boehner for the unflinching servant to the ultra right wing in this country he has been. It's time to stop terming him a victim and start exposing him for willingly endangering American security and American progress.

"I have no more campaigns to run. I know, because I won both of them." This was the instant classic jetting all over social media (and other media) in the aftermath of the president's State of the Union address as he burned the GOP. But there's a deeper message in that zinger: Obama warned the GOP not to mess with him.

Mitch McConnell started off the Republican propaganda campaign the other day to claim credit for the improving economy under President Obama. But in poll after poll, Americans are crediting the president. Though it's often true that the sitting president bears more than his share of blame or credit for contemporary economic condition, every single positive economic indicator today can be tied to specific Obama policies.

Republicans and the media are having proverbial orgasms over the symbolism of the absence of a "more visible" American representative at the Paris solidarity rally than the US ambassador to France. A "journalist" went even so far as saying that he is ashamed to be an American because of it, while high ranking GOP officials - who themselves refused to go to the march - representing the party that had the word 'french' officially removed from Congressional cafeteria menu items because France wouldn't go along with George Bush's war of lies beat the drums. Disgusting.

December concluded a surging year for jobs - creating 252,000 jobs in that month alone and reducing the unemployment rate to 5.6%. At the rate of current job growth, a full employment economy is possible within a year. But we didn't get here by accident. We got here because a president refused to give into the cynics and the special interests and never stopped working for the American people. This recovery is, in every sense of the phrase, the Obama Recovery.

Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, the rate of US (non-medicare eligble) adults without health insurance has fallen to historic new lows, the lowest since Gallup began tracking. The lion's share of the benefits went to low income adults and minorities, who needed the law the most.